The Prospective Wife Read Free

by a bee.’ She peered towards the area of her arm which was already puffy and inflamed.
    ‘You poor thing. Let me have a look…’
    So much for all the elaborate subterfuge to ensure his privacy! Someone at the hospital must have passed on the information to the press. Matt Devlin quickly got tired of waiting for Joe to get rid of the unwanted visitor and eased himself slowly from the low-slung vehicle. By the time he was standing on the gravelled forecourt beads of sweat stood out on his brow.
    Matt propelled himself with the assistance of the much-despised crutches to find out what was taking so long. Once he was in a position to get his first proper view of the girl he stopped wondering.
    Honey-blonde hair pulled back into a cute ponytail to reveal a simpering smile—that was no way genuine—pinned on a face that was all scrubbed cheeks, innocent big eyes and sexy lips. Then, last but not least— definitely not least—there was the body. No anorexic waif, this one; Lara Croft meets the girl next door! In short, the babe of dopes like Joe’s collective dreams.
    Joe had a vacuous grin on his face. It made Matt feel embarrassed just to look at it; he’d seen sheep that looked more intelligent than his best friend did at this moment! A superior sneer tugged at the corners of his lips. The women in his dreams had more going for them than insipid prettiness.
    ‘Matt,’ Joe hailed him. ‘Kat here has been stung by a wasp.’
    Matt watched sourly as he held the babe’s slim arm out for his inspection.
    ‘Bee,’ the babe said in a brisk, un-babe-like voice.
    Matt found she was looking critically at himself, not Joe. Her eyes were large, clear grey, lushly fringed by dark curling lashes and tilted ever so slightly at the outer corners.
    Bimbo, yes…brainless, no… No amount of mascara or cheesy grins could disguise the intelligence lurking in those crystal-clear depths.
    ‘Are you another one from that damned woman’s magazine? I’ve already told your editor where she can stick her story!’ He felt a surge of grim satisfaction as he watched her high-voltage smile gutter.

    The reference meant nothing to Kat, so she could shake her head in vigorous denial with a clear conscience.
    ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’ His silence oozed disbelief. ‘You are Matthew Devlin…?’ A case of mistaken identity…? The optimist in her soared before his abrasive response brought her crashing down to earth with a thud.
    ‘I know who I am. Who are you?’
    Kat blinked several times, and tried not act as if she felt slightly singed by those blazing blue eyes. He was tall without being lanky, broad of shoulder without being bulky, and darkly beautiful in a dangerous Byronic hero sort of way…in short, a knock-out! She felt a spurt of indignation. Why hadn’t someone warned her?
    In the masculine beauty stakes she’d have rated him, on a scale of one to ten, at a conservative twelve and a half! She couldn’t help but reflect that it would have been an aesthetic tragedy if a face like that had been scarred; as it was, the only immediate evidence of his injuries was a thin scar that ran from a point midway along his prominent cheekbone to his temple.
    He’d probably laugh when she explained…they’d laugh together. Another look at that lean uncompromising face with its intriguing planes and angles told her that was taking optimism too far! Whatever else this job was going to be, it wasn’t going to be a laugh a minute.
    To prove that she wasn’t intimidated—an uphill battle—she smiled serenely, and the dark fallen angel face didn’t budge. There wasn’t even the suggestion of a quiver around the beautifully sculpted lips.
    Faced with belligerent antagonism on the face of her patient—and Kat was getting the distinct impression this wasn’t the sort of man who would respond to gentle understanding—she felt a twinge of nostalgia for the pale, pliable, mummy’s boy of her imagination.
    There was